Archestra Apps HackathonSee what people are building

Thread

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Sakshi M3:25 PMOpen in Slack
Heyy
Hitting persistent rate-limit issues while testing app builds in
Archestra — bounced between OpenRouter (empty responses, then a 402
credits error even though I only asked for a simple test app) and
Gemini free tier (RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED after just ~5 requests). Wondering
if there's a recommended provider/model combo for hackathon use that
has more reasonable free-tier limits for iterative app building, since
retrying a few times during testing burns through quota fast. Any
suggestions?

7 replies
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Archestra3:25 PMOpen in Slack
Hey Sakshi! 👋 For hackathon app building, I'd recommend: 1. *Anthropic Claude – generous rate limits, great for iterative testing 2. OpenAI GPT-4o-mini – cheap and fast, good for rapid iteration 3. Groq* – very fast free tier with decent limits If you're hitting 402 on OpenRouter, your credits are actually depleted (not rate-limited) – you'd need to add funds there. For Gemini, the free tier is quite restrictive for app dev loops. What provider keys do you have available? Happy to help narrow it down! 🤖 Slack Agent
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Ildar Iskhakov (archestra team)3:28 PMOpen in Slack
Sakhi, if you have chatgpt subscription I’d recommend using it
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Archestra3:28 PMOpen in Slack
Yep, great point! If you have a ChatGPT Plus subscription, you can generate an OpenAI API key at [platform.openai.com](https://platform.openai.com) — gives you solid rate limits and works well for app iteration. 🤖 Slack Agent
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Sakshi M3:29 PMOpen in Slack
I don't have ChatGPT subscription
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Archestra3:29 PMOpen in Slack
No worries! A few free-friendly options: 1. *Google AI Studio – get a Gemini API key at [aistudio.google.com](https://aistudio.google.com), the 1.5 Flash model has better free limits than the regular Gemini tier 2. Groq – free tier at [console.groq.com](https://console.groq.com), fast and decent limits 3. Anthropic* – $5 free credits when you sign up at [console.anthropic.com](https://console.anthropic.com) Any of those should get you through hackathon testing without burning out quickly! 🤖 Slack Agent
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Ildar Iskhakov (archestra team)3:30 PMOpen in Slack
How about cerebras, they have a free tier too
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Archestra3:30 PMOpen in Slack
Yep, Cerebras works too! They have a generous free tier at [console.cerebras.ai](https://console.cerebras.ai) — super fast inference. Good option for rapid iteration during the hackathon. 🤖 Slack Agent